The report will be damaging for the Andrews Government and Labor, but it stopped short of recommending any criminal charges or referral to the state's anti-corruption watchdog.

Electorate officers are banned from "political" campaigning.

Ms Glass estimated the electorate officers working on the campaign were paid nearly $388,000.

MPs 'believed payments were legitimate'

In the report, the ombudsman said MPs who participated in the arrangement and signed timesheets believed it was legitimate.

"I make no criticism of the campaign or the field organisers," Ms Glass wrote.

"But while some electorate officer work was done for some Members of Parliament, the arrangement to employ field organisers as electorate officers was an artifice to secure partial payment for the campaign out of parliamentary funds, and was wrong."